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DEDICATION 



GREEN MOUNT CEMETERY. 



JULY 13th, 1839. 



BALTIMORE: 

PR1^TED BY WOODS &. CRANE. 

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GREEN MOUNT. 



Green Mount was the name given to the country 
seat of the late Robert Oliver, in the vicinity of Balti- 
more. During his life, Mr. Oliver spared no expense in 
beautifying it; and, aided by its natural advantages, he 
left it, at his death, a highly ornamented and most lovely 
spot. It was purchased from his heirs by an association 
of gentlemen, who appropriated sixty acres of it to the 
establishment of the public cemetery, whose dedication 
gave rise to the ceremonial, of which the following 
pages are the record. 

The dedication took place on the grounds, in the open 
air, in a grove of forest trees, on the evening of Satur- 
day, July 13th, 1839. 



DEDICATION 



OF 



GREEN MOUNT CEMETERY 



The hour for commencing the ceremonies of the dedi- 
cation having arrived, the Musical Association of Bahi- 
more, who lent their most valuable services on the 
occasion, sang the following chorale, from the oratorio 
of St. Paul: 

Sleepers wake, a voice is calling, 

It is the watchman on the walls : 

Thou city of Jerusalem ! 

For lo ! the bride2;room comes ! 

Arise, and take your lamps ! 

Hallelujah! 

Awake, his kingdom is at hand, 

Go forth to meet your Lord ! 

When the opening was concluded, the following Prayer 
was delivered by the Rev. William E. Wyatt, Rector 
of St. Paul's church, Baltimore. 



PRAYER. 



Our Father in heaven, we who dwell in houses of 
clay, and are crushed before the moth, approach to ren- 
der homage to Him that inhabiteth eternity. Strangers 
and pilgrims as we are upon the earth, we would lay the 
foundations of a city of the dead. And taught by this 
narrow field, destined to be the receptacle of successive 
generations, we discern the vanity and frailty of our 
nature, and we take refuge at the foot of thy throne, O 
Most Mighty, Creator of the ends of the earth, whose 
judgments are a great deep. Before the mountains were 
brought forth, or ever the earth and the worlds were 
made, from everlasting to everlasting, thou, and thou 
only, art GOD. Together with the adoring tribute of 
creatures to their Creator, we offer thee our thanksgiv- 
ings, for all the dispensations of thy love and bounty, 
thy care and providence, thy forbearance and pity. 
More especially we praise thee for the glorious hope of 
immortality ; and that beyond our bed of corruption, and 



our sleep in dust, there is a bright world of perfections 
and privileges, spiritual, and like thyself, everlasting. 
Great God, we thank thee for all the means and instru- 
ments of attaining this unspeakable gift; for thy written 
word, with its mighty attestations; for thy life-giving 
doctrines; thy strengthening ordinances; thy consoling 
graces. Above all, we thank thee for sending eternal 
redemption to us by the blood of thine own incarnate Son. 
O accept our worship and praise, that thou art recon- 
ciling the world unto thyself by Jesus Christ, not imput- 
ing their trespasses unto them; and that in him we have 
"complete redemption." 

It is thy gracious promise, Lord, who dost guide thy 
people in thy strength to thy holy habitation, that if we 
lean not to our own understanding, but commit our way 
unto the Lord, thou wilt bring it to pass. We therefore 
come before thee, to invoke thy blessing upon the under- 
taking of thy servants, here assembled, who, according 
to the example of the patriarchs and thy people of old, 
are about to set apart "a field for a burying place," when 
we, and ours, shall be gathered unto our fathers. The 
earth is thine, O Lord, and the fullness thereof; and meet 
it is, thpct we should solemnly dedicate to the blended pur- 
poses of religion and charity, a portion of what thou hast 
given to our use. Meet it is, that here, beneath the shade 
of the majestic wood, in a holy solitude and silence, they 
who have fulfilled their pilgrimage, and rest from their 
labors, should wait in peace, the summons of the resur- 
rection morn. Our Father, take this sequestered asylum 



to thy special providence. Ever spread over it the sha- 
dow of thy wings. With gentler dispensation than of old, 
when sin had driven our fathers from Eden, let angels, 
though unseen, guard its entrance. Let not the foot of 
pride, or folly, or violence, come near to unhallow it. 
And although no voice of admonition can reach the dull 
ear of death, nor prayer avail to change the doom which 
thou hast here sealed, yet, gracious Lord, may each 
grassy mound, and each marble memorial, utter a thrill- 
ing warning to the living, and fill this page of man's 
history with lessons of wisdom to every heart. 

When to any one among us, thy decree shall go forth, 
"dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return;" and when 
the mourning train has hither borne the loved one to the 
house appointed for all living, and with holy rites we 
seek at thy hands consolation and strength; have thou 
respect unto the prayer of thy ministering servants, and 
to their supplication, O Lord our God, to hearken to the 
cry of sorrow, and to the prayer of faith, which may 
reach thy footstool from these sepulchres; and hear thou 
in heaven, thy dweUing place, and when thou hearest, 
forgive. 

God of consolation, may thy Spirit ever be present to 
minister to the bereaved whom thy providence shall draw 
within these sacred enclosures; and while resigned, they 
bow meekly before thy sovereign, though sometimes in" 
scrutable, decrees, inspire, Lord, the soothing reflection, 
that, "to die is gain;" that here the wicked cease from 
2 



TO 

troubling, and the weary are at rest; that here ternpta- 
tion expires, and each toilsome task is fulfilled, and tran- 
sient sorrow turned into everlasting joy. When in bitter 
anguish they shall look into the graves here to be opened, 
as into a fearful abyss, dividing them from all that can 
render life joyous, O do thou teach them, that that sepa- 
ration shall be short; that quickly shall all the scenes and 
illusions of time vanish; and that, in the land of spirits, 
soon shall every holy tie be again bound, and severed 
hearts be forever reunited. 

All wise God, in this vestibule of the unseen worlds 
where through the clustering oaks, the perpetual dirge of 
winds seems the response of awful rites within, inspire 
us with lessons of heavenly-mindedness and devotion. 
From yonder stately mansion,* where once was heard 
the viol and the harp, but henceforth the sanctuary of 
offices for the dead, let us learn the instability of earthly 
things. From the slow funereal pageant, which entering 
with touching ritual, within these walls, in the proud 
mausoleum shall deposite the remains of the possessor of 
rank and wealth, may we all be taught the folly of pride. 
And when the learned and the mighty shall here say "to 
corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art 
my mother and sister," may the friendless and the poor be 
inspired with contentment under the brief humiliations of 
their lot; and may they lay it to heart, that every path of 

* 'I'he seat of the late Uobert Oliver, Esij., to be converted into a chapel lin 
Lhe cemetery. 



11 

iife, however illustrious or obscure, ends alike but in a 
silent, narrow cell. 

In the view of the mouldering masses of corruption 
which shall soon swell this verdant turf, grant, most just 
and holy God, that the madness of profligacy and ex- 
cess, may be mightily urged upon every conscience. 
Teach the youthful and the impassioned, musing in these 
avenues of the charnel house, that the ways of guilty 
pleasure lead to premature ruin, and that the wages of sin 
is death. Here, let those who, in sottish idolatry of the 
world, are putting off from day to day the work of con- 
version to God, discern the danger of procrastination. 
Teach them the appalling truth, that "there is but a 
step between us and death." And while the tombs of the 
young, and the vigorous, and the bold, who have not 
lived out half their days, disclose the brief memorial of 
frustrated plans, and presumptuous hopes, may they 
startle every conscience into greater diligence of prepa- 
ration for the Master's coming. 

Here, in this quiet retreat from the turmoil of the world, 
teach us, O our Father, the fruitlessness of discord, and 
the littleness of ambition. Looking into the noiseless 
chambers of the tomb, where once angry partisans lie 
down together without strife, and rival heroes find a calm 
resting place by each other's side, may our hearts be 
touched with the vanity of the feuds which disturb the 
peace of the world. Seeing here the end of glory, and 
the emptiness of triumphs, may we shun the vain conflicts 



12 

of life, and seek supremely those things which are 
spiritual and eternal. 

When the wan and the weary child of disease, stands 
trembling beside an open sepulchre, and the vision of its 
dreary solitudes and eternal desolations, sends a chill 
and shuddering foreboding into his heart, do thou. Lord, 
with thy rod and thy staff, sustain and cheer him. In the 
midst of that gloom, insinuate gently the triumphant as- 
surance, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he 
shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though, 
after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh 
shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine 
eyes shall behold, and not another." 

When holy bonds, cemented under thy sanction, are riven, 
and alliances of kindred or friendship are here dissolved: 
when standing thus upon the shore of eternity, we gaze 
upon the stranded bark of the now distant voyager, Lord, 
send to our hearts the deep inquiry, "Have the vows and 
the offices of love which I once assumed, been faithfully 
discharged? Was aught left undone for his temporal 
good 1 Withholding the meet returns of grateful affection, 
have I embittered the days of him, whose remains now 
lie insensate before me? Owed I more zeal to his safety in 
that unchangeable state, where the never dying spirit now 
is, beyond the reach of my aid, my prayers, and my 
attachment ?" And grant. Lord, that salutary reflections 
like these, controlling our plans, and tempers, and con- 
versation, may diffuse the spirit of gentleness and charity 
throus^h the intercourse of such as survive. 



13 

Thou Great First Cause, Fountain of every good, who, 
by thy gospel, hast brought life and immortality to light, 
here teach the hapless sceptic the power of faith. Con- 
strain him to inquire, what would be the refuge of his 
trembling spirit, in consecrating the cemetery, and rear- 
ing the mausoleum, if its darkness and gloom were the 
last stage of our being; if the dissolving elements of the 
body revealed the utter ruin of our nature; and if here an 
iron destiny called us to abandon forever to the desolations 
of the grave, the infant in its lovehness, the tender wife, 
and the cherished friend. Pitying God, whence then 
could the voice of comfort arise! O fill all our hearts with 
a transporting sense of the value of our heavenly inheri- 
tance. Disclose to us the gate of the grave, as the portals of 
immortality. And having this hope, may it be our great 
aim to purify ourselves even as thou art pure; to crucify 
the world in our hearts; in spirituality and heavenly mind- 
edness, to be conformed to the likeness of Christ; to five by 
faith in the Son of God; that we may die in hope, and go 
down to the chambers of the dead, rich in all the pro- 
mises of the everlasting covenant. And, O God, who 
dost now make darkness thy pavilion about thee, in that 
day, when the last trumpet shall sound through all the 
secret caves of the ocean, and deep recesses of the earth, 
and when the voice of the archangel shall call forth the 
slumbering generations of men from the silent abode of 
ages, may we rise to a glorious resurrection. Justified 
by faith, may we mingle in that great assembly, which 



14 

cannot be numbered for multitude, with bodies glorified, 
affections sublimed, faculties perfected, to see thee face 
to face, and to expatiate in immortal youth. 

Our great Mediator, incarnate for man, who didst 
vouchsafe that thy sacred body should repose in the tomb 
of Joseph, own and bless this our undertaking. In thy 
name, we now dedicate this field "to be a burying place;" 
that, in the bonds of a common faith, they whose remains 
shall be here consigned to their parent earth, may together 
rest in safety and hope. May the hallowing influences of 
thy gospel ever abide, in peaceful sway throughout this 
awful sanctuary of the dead. And, when thou shalt stand 
at the latter day upon the earth, and the mountains shall 
quake, and the hills shall melt, may the awakening in- 
habitants of this city of the dead, through thy merits and 
intercession, O blessed Lord Jesus, have a building of God, 
a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 



At the conclusion of the prayer, the following Hymn, 
composed for the occasion by J. H. B. Latrobe, Esq., 
was sung by the Musical Association, to the tune of the 
100th Psalm; the assembled multitude joining in the well 
known melody. 



15 



HYMN. 

We meet not now where pillar'd aisles, 

In long and dim perspective fade; 
No dome, by human hands uprear'd, 

Gives to this spot its solemn shade. 
Our temple is the woody vale, 

It shrines these gi-ateful hearts of ours; 
Our incense is the balmy gale, 

Wliose perfume is the spoil of flowers. 

Yet here, where now the living meet. 

The shrouded dead ere long wUl rest. 
And grass now trod beneath our feet, 

Wm mournful wave above our breast. 
Here birds will sing their notes of praise. 

When summer hours are bright and warm; 
And wmter's sweeping winds will raise. 

The sounding anthems of the storm. 

Then now, wliile life's warm currents flow, 

WhUe restless tlirobs the anxious heart, 
Teach us, oh Lord, thy power to know, 

Thy grace, oh Lord, our God, impart: 
That when, beneath this verdant soil, 

Our dust to kindred dust is given ; 
Our soulsj released from mortal coU, 

May find, with thee, their rest in Heaven. 



After the Hymn, the Hon. John P. Kennedy delivered 
the following Address. 



ADDRESS 



My Friends — 

We have been called together at this place to 
distinguish, by an appropriate ceremonial, the establish- 
ment of the Green Mount Cemetery. It is gratifying to 
perceive, in this large assemblage of the inhabitants of 
our city, a proof of the interest they take in the accom- 
plishment of this design. To a fev^ of our public-spirited 
citizens we are indebted for this laudable undertaking, 
and I feel happy in the opportunity to congratulate them 
upon the eminent success with which their labors are 
likely to be crowned. 

It is a natural sentiment that leads man to the contem- 
plation of his final resting place. In the arrangement of 
the world there is no lack of remembrancers to remind 
us of dissolution. This unsteady navigation of life, with 
its adverse winds, its sunken rocks and secret shoals, its 
dangers of the narrow strait and open sea, is full of 
warning of shipwreck, and, even in its most prosperous 
conditions, awakens the mind to the perception that we 

are making our destined haven with an undesired speed. 
3 



18 

Childhood has its dream of destruction; youth has its 
shudder at the frequent funereal pageant that obtrudes 
upon his gambols; manhood courts acquaintance with 
danger as the familiar price of success, and old age 
learns to look upon death with a cheerful countenance 
and to hail him as a companion. This theatre of life, is 
it not even more appropriately a theatre of death ? What 
is our title to be amongst the Hving, but a title derived 
from mortality? That extinction which tracked the 
footsteps of those who went before us and overtook 
them, made room for us, and brought us to this inheri- 
tance of air and light: — they who are to follow us will 
thank Death for their turn upon earth. He is the patron 
of posterity, and the great provider for the present gene- 
ration. We subsist by his labor; we are fed by his 
hand; to him we owe all this fabric of human produc- 
tion, these arts of civilization, these beneficent and beau- 
tifying toils, these wonder-working handicrafts and head- 
fancies, that have filled this world with the marvels of 
man's genius. From Death springs Necessity, and from 
Necessity all man's triumphs over nature. Look abroad 
and tell me what has brought forth this beautiful scheme 
of art which we call the world; what has invented all 
this enginery of society; what has appointed it for man 
to toil, and given these multiform rewards to his labor; 
why, with the rising sun, goes he forth cheerily to his 
vocation, and endures the heat and burden of the day 
with such good heart. It is because Death has taught 



19 

him to strive against Hunger and Want. Without such 
strife, this fair garden were but a horrid wilderness — this 
populous array of Christian men but some scattered 
horde of starving cannibals. Again look abroad, and 
tell me what is this universal motion of the elements, 
this perpetual progress from seed-time to harvest, these 
silent workings of creation, and unceasing engender- 
ments of new forms, — what is this whole plan, but a 
mass of life ever springing from the compost of death, — 
sensible, breathing essences, melting away like flakes of 
snow, milhons in every moment, and out of their destruc- 
tion new living things forever coming forth? Look to 
our own race. Even as the forest sinks to the earth 
under the sweep of the storm, or by the woodman's axe, 
or by the touch of Time, so our fellow men fall before 
the pestilence, or by the sword, or in the decay of age. 
The dead a thousand-fold outnumber those that live : 



All that tread 
The globe, are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. 



In the midst of these tokens, do we stand in need of 
lectures to remind us that we are but for a season, and 
that very soon we are to be without a shadow on this 
orb ? Child of the dust, answer ! Confess, as I know in 
your .secret breathings you must, that in the watches of 



20 

the night, when wakefuhiess has beset your pillow, or in 
the chance seclusion of the day, when toil has been 
suspended, nay, even in the very eager importunity of 
business, and often in the wildest moment of revelry, 
this question of death and his conditions has come un- 
bidden to the mind, and with a strange familiarity of 
fellowship has urged its claim to be entertained in your 
meditations. Thus death grows upon us, and becomes, 
at last, a domestic comrade thought. 

Kind is it in the order of Providence that we are, in 
this wise, bade to make ourselves ready for that inevita- 
ble day when our bodies shall sleep upon the lap of our 
mother earth. Wise in us is it, too, to bethink ourselves 
of this in time, not only that we may learn to walk 
humbly in the presence of our Creator, but even for that 
lesser care, the due disposal of that visible remainder 
which is to moulder into dust after the spirit has returned 
to God who gave it. Though to the eye of cold philoso- 
phy there may be nothing in that remainder worthy of 
a monument, and though, in contrast with the heaven- 
lighted hopes of the Christian, it may seem to be but 
dross too base to merit his care, yet still there is an ac- 
knowledged longing of the heart that when life's calen- 
ture is over, and its stirring errand done, this apt and deli- 
cate machine by which we have wrought our work, this 
serviceable body whereof our ingenuity has found some- 
thing lo be vain, shall lie down to its long rest in some 
place agreeable to our living fancies, and be permitted. 



21 

in undisturbed quiet, to commingle with its parent earth. 
The sentiment is strong in my bosom, — I doubt not it is 
shared by many,— to feel a keen interest in the mode 
and circumstances of that long sleep which it is appointed 
to each and all of us to sleep. I do not wish to lie down 
in the crowded city. I would not be jostled in my nar- 
row house, — much less have my dust give place to the 
intrusion of later comers: I would not have the stone 
memorial that marks my resting place to be gazed upon 
by the business-perplexed crowd in their every day pur- 
suit of gain, and where they ply their tricks of custom. 
Amidst this din and traffic of the living is no fit place 
for the dead. My affection is for the country, — that God- 
made country, where Nature is the pure first-born of the 
Divinity, and all the tokens around are of Truth. My 
tomb should be beneath the bowery trees, on some 
pleasant hill-side, within sound of the clear brattling 
brook; where the air comes fresh and filled with the 
perfume of flowers; where the early violet greets the 
spring, and the sweet-briar blooms, and the woodbine 
ladens the dew with its fragrance ; 



Where the shower and the singing bird, 
'Midst the green leaves are heard — 



where the yellow leaf of autumn shall play in the wind; 
and where the winter snow shall fall in noiseless flakes 
and lie in unspotted brightness; — the changing seasons 



22 

thus syinboling forth, even within the small precincts of 
my rest, that birth and growth and fall which marked 
my mortal state, and, in the renovation of Spring, giving 
a glad t}^e of that resurrection which shall no less 
surely be mine. 

I think it may be set down somewhat to the reproach 
of our country that we too much neglect this care of 
the dead. It betokens an amiable, venerating, and re- 
ligious people, to see the tombs of their forefathers not 
only carefully preserved, but embeUished with those 
natural accessories which display a thoughtful and appro- 
priate reverence. The pomp of an overlabored and 
costly tomb scarcely may escape the criticism of a just 
taste; that tax which ostentation is wont to pay to the 
living in the luxury of sculptured marble dedicated to the 
dead, often attracts disgust by its extravagant dispropor- 
tion to the merits of its object; but a becoming respect 
for those from whom we have sprung, an affectionate 
tribute to our departed friends and the friends of our 
ancestors, manifested in the security with which we 
guard their remains, and in the neatness with which we 
adorn the spot where they are deposited, is no less hon- 
orable to the survivors than it is respectful to the dead. 
"Our fathers," says an eloquent old writer, "find their 
graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we 
may be buried in our survivors." It is a good help to 
these "short memories," and a more than pardonable 
vanity, to keep recollection alive by monuments that may 



23 

attract the eye and arrest the step, long after the bones 
beneath them shall have become part of the common 
mould. 

I think we too much neglect this care of the dead. 
No one can travel through our land M^ithout being im- 
pressed with a disagreeable sense of our indifference to 
the adornment and even to the safety of the burial places. 
How often have I stopped to note the village grave-yard, 
occupying a cheerless spot by the road side ! Its ragged 
fence furnishing a scant and ineffectual barrier against 
the invasion of trespassing cattle, or beasts still more 
destructive; its area deformed with rank weeds, — the 
Jamestown, the dock, and the mullen; and for shade, no 
better furniture than some dwarfish, scrubby, incon- 
gruous tree, meagre of leaves, gnarled and ungraceful, 
rising sohtary above the coarse, unshorn grass. And 
there were the graves, — an unsightly array of naked 
mounds; some with no more durable memorial to tell 
who dwelt beneath, than a decayed, illegible tablet of 
wood, or if better than this, the best of them with cover- 
ings of crumbling brick masonry and dislocated slabs of 
marble, forming, perchance, family groups, environed by 
a neglected paling of dingy black, too plainly showing 
how entirely the occupants had gone from the thoughts 
of their survivors. Not a pathway was there to indicate 
that here had ever come the mourner to look upon the 
grave of a friend, or that this was the haunt of a solitary 
footstep bent hither for profitable meditation. I felt my- 



24 

self truly amongst the deserted mansions of the dead, 
and have turned from the spot to seek again the haunts 
of the living, out of the very chill of the heart v^hich 
such a dilapidated scene had cast upon me. Many such 
places of interment may be found in the country. 

It is scarce better in the cities. There is more expense, 
it is true, and more care — for the tribute paid to mor- 
tahty in the crovrded city renders the habitations of its 
dead a more frequent resort. But in what concerns the 
garniture of these cemeteries, in all that relates to the 
embellishment appropriate to their character and their 
purpose, how much is wanting! Examine around our 
own city. You shall find more than one grave-yard 
enclosed with but the common post and rail fence and 
occupying the most barren spot of ground, in a suburb 
near to where the general offal of the town is strewed 
upon the plain and taints the air with its offensive exha- 
lations. You shall observe it studded with tombs of 
sufficiently neat structure, but unsoftened by the shade 
of a single shrub — or, if not entirely bare, still so naked 
of the simple ornament of tree and flower, as to afford 
no attraction to the eye, no solicitation to the footstep of 
the visiter. That old and touching appeal, "siste viator," 
is made to the wayfarer from its desolate marbles in vain; 
there is nothing to stop the traveller and wring a sigh 
from his bosom, unless it be to find mortality so cheap- 
ly dealt with in these uncheery solitudes. We have 
cemeteries better than these, where great expense has 



25 

been incurred to give them greater security and more 
elaborate ornament; but these too — even the best of 
them — are sadly repulsive to the feelings, from the air 
of overcrowded habitation, and too lavish expenditure of 
marble and granite w^ithin their narrov^ hmits. This 
press for space, the result of an under estimate, in the 
infancy of the city, of what time might require, has 
compelled the exclusion of that rural adornment so 
appropriate to the dwellings of the dead, — so appropriate 
because so pure and natural — the deep shade, the ver- 
dant turf, the flower-enamelled bank, with their con- 
comitants, the hum of bees and carol of summer birds. 
I like not these lanes of ponderous granite pyramids, 
these gloomy, unwindowed blocks of black and white 
marble, these prison-shaped walls, and that harsh gate 
of rusty iron, slow moving on its grating hinges ! I cannot 
affect this sterile and sunny solitude. Give me back the 
space, the quiet, the simple beauty and natural repose 
of the country! 

The profitable uses of the Cemetery are not confined 
to the security it affords the dead : The living may find 
in it a treasure of wholesome instruction. That heart 
which does not seek communion with the grave, and 
dwell with calm and even pleasurable meditation on the 
change which nature's great ordinance has decreed, has 
laid up but scant provision against the weariness or the 
perils of this world's pilgrimage. "Measure not thyself 
by thy morning shadow, but by the extent of thy grave," 
4 



26 

is the solemn invocation which the departed spirit whis- 
pers into the ear of the Hving man. The tomb is a faith- 
ful counsellor, and may not wisely be estranged from 
our view. It tells us the great truth that Death is not the 
Destroyer, but Time; it counsels us that Time is our 
friend or foe as we ourselves fashion him, and it warns 
us to make a friend of Time for the sake of Eternity. 
That this instruction may be often repeated and planted 
deep in our minds, I would have the public burial 
ground not remote from our habitations. It should be 
seated in some nook so peaceful and pleasant as to be- 
guile the frequent rambler to its shades and win him to 
the contemplation of himself. And though it should not 
be far from the dwellings of men, yet neither should it 
be cheapened in their eyes by bordering too obviously 
on the path of their common daily outgoings. Screens 
of thick foliage should shut it out from the road-side, or 
reveal it only in such glimpses as might show the way- 
farer the sequesterment of the spot, and raise in his mind 
a respect for the reverence with which the slumber of 
the dead has been secured. There should evergreens 
relieve the bleak landscape of winter, and blooming 
thickets render joyous the approach of spring. Amongst 
these should rise the monuments of the departed. Here, 
a lowly tablet, half hid beneath the plaited vines, to tell 
of some quiet, unobtrusive spirit that, even in the grave, 
had sought the modest privilege of being not too curi- 
ously scanned by the world ; there, a rich column on the 



27 

beetling brow of the hill, with its tasteful carvings and 
ambitious sculpture, to note the resting place of some 
favorite of fame or fortune. At many an interval, peer- 
ing through the shrubbery, the variously-wrought tombs 
should unfold to the eye of the observer a visible index 
to that world of character which death had subdued into 
silence and grouped together under these diversified 
emblems of his power. There, matron and maid, parent 
and child, friend and brother, should be found so asso- 
ciated that their very environments should communicate 
something of the story of their Hves. Every thing 
around him should inspire the visiter with the sentiment 
that he walked amongst the relics of a generation dear 
to its survivors. The sanctity and the silence of the 
place, with its quiet walks, its retired seats beneath over- 
hanging boughs, its brief histories chronicled in stone, 
and its moral lessons uttered by speaking marble, — all 
these should allure him to meditate upon that great 
mystery of the grave, and teach him to weigh the voca- 
tions of this atom of time against the concerns of that 
long eternity upon which these tenants of the tomb had 
already entered. What heart-warnings would he gather 
in that meditation against the enticements of worldly 
favor! How soberly would he learn to reckon the 
chances of slippery ambition, the rewards of fortune, 
and the gratifications of sense ! 

We misjudge the world if we deem that even the most 
thoughtless of mankind have not a chord in their hearts 



28 

to vibrate to the solemn harmony of such an atmosphere 
as this. There is no slave of passion so dull to the per- 
suasions of conscience, no worldling so bold in defying 
the proper instinct of his manhood, but would sometimes 
steal to a place like this to discourse with his own heart 
upon the awful question of futurity. Here would he set 
him down at the base of some comrade's recently erect- 
ed tomb, and make a reckoning of his own fleeting day, 
and then, with resolve of better life, — a resolve which 
even the habit of his heedless career, perchance, has not 
power to stifle — go forth stoutly bent on its achievement. 
Hither, in levity would stray many a careless footstep, 
but not in levity depart. The chance-caught warning of 
the tomb would attemper the mind to a sober tone of 
virtue, and long afterwards linger upon the memor}-. 
To this resort, the heart perplexed with worldly strivings 
and wearied with the appointments of daily care, would 
fly for the very relief of that lesson on the vanity of 
human pursuits which this mute scene would teach wdth 
an eloquence passing human utterance. 

Such considerations as these have not been without 
their weight in prompting the enterprise which we are 
assembled this day to commemorate. Our friends, to 
whom the city is indebted for this design, have with 
great judgment and success, in the selection of the place 
and in the organization of their plan, sought to combine 
the benefit of these moral influences with the external or 
physical advantages of such an institution. This Ceme- 



29 

tery, like tiiose which suggested its estabhshnient, will be 
maintained under regulations adapted to the preservation 
of every public observance of respect which the privacy 
and the sanctity of the purposes to which it is dedicated 
may require. Indeed, such institutions of themselves 
appeal so forcibly to the better instincts of our nature, 
and raise up so spontaneously sentiments of respect in 
the human bosom, as to stand in need of little rigor in 
the enforcement of the laws necessary to guard them 
against violation. The experience of our people in their 
usefulness is limited to but few years; yet, brief as is the 
term, it is worthy of observation that no public establish- 
ment seems to have excited a more affectionate interest 
in the mind of the country, or enlisted a readier patron- 
age than this mode of providing for the repose of the 
dead. Within the last ten years, the cemeteries of Mount 
Auburn and Laurel Hill have been constructed. They 
already constitute the most attractive objects to the 
research of the visiter in the environs of the cities to 
which they belong. Scarce an inhabitant of Boston or 
Philadelphia who does not testify to the pride with which 
he regards the pubhc cemetery in his neighborhood. No 
traveller, with the necessary leisure on his hands, is con- 
tent to quit those cities without an excursion to Mount 
Auburn or Laurel Hill; and the general praise of the 
public voice is expressed in every form in which the 
home dweller or the stranger can find utterance to pay a 
tribute to these beautiful improvements of the recent 
time. 



30 

This C'einetery of Green Mount, constructed on the 
same plan, may advantageously compare with those to 
which I have alluded. It is more accessible than Mount 
Auburn; it is more spacious than that in the neighbor- 
hood of Philadelphia; and in point of scenery, both as 
respects the improvement of the grounds, and the adja- 
cent country, it is, at least, equal to either. — I know not 
where the eye may find more pleasing landscapes than 
those which surround us. Here, within our enclosures, 
how aptly do these sylvan embellishments harmonize 
with the design of the place! — this venerable grove of 
ancient forest; this lawn shaded with choicest trees; that 
green meadow, where the brook creeps through the tan- 
gled thicket begemmed with wild flowers; these embow- 
ered alleys and pathways hidden in shrubbery, and that 
grassy knoll studded with evergreens and sloping to the 
cool dell where the fountain ripples over its pebbly bed: — 
all hemmed in by yon natural screen of foliage which 
seems to separate this beautiful spot from the world and 
devote it to the tranquil uses to which it is now to be 
applied. Beyond the gate that guards these precincts we 
gaze upon a landscape rife with all the charms that hill 
and dale, forest-clad heights and cultivated fields may 
contribute to enchant the eye. That stream which north- 
ward cleaves the woody hills, comes murmuring to our 
feet, rich with the reflections of the bright heaven and 
the green earth ; thence leaping along between its gra- 
nite banks, hastens towards the city whose varied out- 



81 

line of tower, steeple, and dome, gilded by the evening 
sun and softened by the haze, seems to sleep in per- 
spective against the southern sky: and there, fitly sta- 
tioned within our view, that noble column, destined 
to immortality from the name it bears, lifts high above 
the ancient oaks that crown the hill, the venerable form 
of the Father of his Country, a majestic image of the 
deathlessness of virtue. 

Though scarce an half hour's walk from yon living 
mart, where one hundred thousand human beings toil in 
their noisy crafts, here the deep quiet of the country 
reigns, broken by no ruder voice than such as marks the 
tranquillity of rural life, — the voice of "birds on branches 
warbling," — the lowing of distant cattle, and the whet- 
ting of the mower's scythe. Yet tidings of the city not 
unpleasantly reach the ear in the faint murmur which at 
intervals is borne hither upon the freshening breeze, and 
more gratefully still in the deep tones of that cathedral 
bell. 

Swinging- slow, with sullen roar, 

as morning and noon, and richer at even tide, it flings 
its pealing melody across these shades with an invocation 
that might charm the lingering visiter to prayer. 

To such a spot as this have we come to make provi- 
sion for our long rest; and hither, even as drop follows 
drop in the rain, shall the future generations that may 



32 

people our city, find their way and sleep at our sides. 
It may be a vain fancy, yet still it is not unpleasing, that 
in that long future our present fellowships may be pre- 
served, and that the friends and kindred who now che- 
rish their Hving association shall not be far separated in 
the tomb. Here is space for every denomination of re- 
ligious society, leaving room for each to preserve its ap- 
propriate ceremonies; and here too may the city set 
apart a quarter for public use. That excellent custom, 
the more excellent because it is so distinctively classical 
in its origin, of voting a pubHc tomb to eminent citizens, 
a custom yet unknown to us, I trust will, in the establish- 
ment of this cemetery, find an argument for its adoption: 
that here may be recorded the pubHc gratitude to a 
public benefactor, and in some conspicuous division of 
these grounds, the stranger may read the history of the 
statesman, the divine, the philanthropist, the soldier or 
the scholar whose deeds have improved or whose fame 
adorned the city. In such monuments virtue finds a 
cheering friend, youth a noble incentive, and the heart of 
every man a grateful topic of remembrance. I mis- 
take our fellow citizens if it would not gratify them to 
see their pubhc authorities adopt this custom. 

There is something in the spectacle of a living genera- 
tion employed in the selection of their own tombs that 
speaks favorably for their virtue. It testifies to a rational, 
reflecting piety; it tells of life unhaunted by the terrors of 
death, of sober thought and serene reckoning of the past 



33 

day. Our present meditations have not unseasonably 
fallen upon these topics, and I would fain hope that they 
will leave us somewhat the wiser at our parting. The 
very presence of this scene, in connection with the pur- 
pose that brought us hither, sheds a silent instruction on 
the heart. How does it recall the warning of scripture, 
"Go to now, ye that say to-day or to-morrow we will go 
into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and 
sell and get gain; whereas ye know not what shall be on 
the morrow. For what is your life ? It is even a vapor 
that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away." 
This grove now untenanted by a single lodger, this up- 
land plain and all these varied grounds, in the brief space 
of a few generations, shall become a populous dwelling 
place of the dead. Hither then will come the inmates of 
yon rapidly-increasing city, in their holiday walks, to 
visit our tombs, and gaze upon the thick-strewed monu- 
ments that shall meet them on every path. Amongst 
these some calm morahst of life, some thoughtful observer 
of man and his aims, will apply himself here to study the 
past — his past, and whilst he lingers over the inscriptions 
that shall tell him of this busy crowd who so intently ply 
what we deem the important labors of to-day, — alas, how 
shrunk and dwarfed shall we appear in his passing com- 
ment ! A line traced by the chisel upon the stone shall 
tell all, and more perhaps than posterity may be concern- 
ed to know, about us and our doings. Which of us shall 
reach a second generation in that downward journey of 
5 



34 

fame ( ILjw many of these events which now fill our 
minds, as tnatters belonging to the nation's destiny, shall 
stand recorded before the eye of that aftertime ? How 
much of our personal connection with present history, 
these strivings of ours to be noted in the descent of time, 
these clamorous invocations of posterity, these exaggera- 
tions of ourselves and our deeds shall be borne even to 
the beginning of the next half century ? Here is a theme 
for human vanity! Let it teach us humility, and in hu- 
mihty that wisdom which shall set us to so ordering our 
lives, that in our deaths those who survive us may be in- 
structed how to win the victory over the grave. Then 
shall our monuments be more worthy to be cherished by 
future generations, and the common doom of oblivion, 
perchance, be averted by better remembrancers than 
these legends on our tombs. In this anticipation we may 
find something not ungrateful in the thought, that whilst 
all mortal beings march steadily onward "to cold obstruc- 
tion," we sink into our gradual dust upon a couch chosen 
by ourselves, with many memorials of friendship and 
esteem clustered around our remains, and that there we 
shall sleep secure until the last summons shall command 
the dead to arise, and call us into the presence of a mer- 
ciful God. 

It does not fall to my province to pursue these reflec- 
tions within the confines to which they so plainly lead us. 
Such topics belong to a more solemn forum, and a better 
provided orator: I dare not invade their sacred field. 



35 

My task required no more than that I should present 
those pubhc considerations which have induced the es- 
tabhshment of this Cemetery ; the subject has naturally 
brought me to the verge of that sublime mystery, from 
which, in reverence only, I turn back my steps. 

In closing my duties at this point, I may assume, with- 
out transcending my assigned privilege, to speak a parting 
word. Our thoughts have been upon the grave — our 
discourse has been of death. It is good for us to grow 
famihar with this theme; but only good, as weighing its 
manifold conditions, we deduce from the study its urgent 
persuasions to a life of piety and virtue. 



So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan that moves 
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of Death, 
Thou go not like the quarry slave at night, 
Scourg'd to his dungeon; but sustain'd and sooth'd 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who vnraps the drapery of his couch 
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



When Mr. Kennedy had finished speaking, the fol- 
lowing Hymn, composed for the occasion by Francis H. 
Davidge, Esq. was sung, as the first had been, to the 
tune of PleyeFs German Hymn. 



36 



HYMN. 

Fount of Mercies — source of love, 

List the hymns we raise to thee ; 
I^'rom thy holy throne above, 

Heedful of our vporship be. 

Creatures of thy sov'reign will, 

At thy feet we humbly bend 5 
Let thy grace our bosoms fill. 

Be our comfort — be our friend. 

Here beneath the smilit sky, 

With thy gifts around us spread; 
We beseech thee — from on high — 

Bless these dwellings of the dead. 

Guard them when the summer's glow, 

Decks with beauties, hill and dale; 
Guard them when the winter's snow, 

Spreads o'er all its mantle pale. 

Here — when wearied pilgrims cease. 

O'er life's chequered scenes to roam. 
May their ashes rest in peace, 

'Till thy voice shall call them home. 

'I'hen, oh then — their trials done. 

Bid them rise to worship thee. 
Where the ransomed of thy Son, 

Join in endless harmony. 

The ceremonies of the dedication were then concluded 
with a Benediction from the Rev. J. G. Hamner, Pastor 
of the fifth Presbyterian church in Baltimore. 



GREEN MOUNT CEMETERY 



Our Plan, for carrying out more speedily to completion, what has 
been so successfully commenced, is a simple one, and can be accom- 
plished as readily in twelve months, as in as many years. It is to get 
five hundred persons to take four lots each. This will be sufficient to 
pay for the property, construct the gate- way, complete the wall, lay off 
the ground, build a chapel, and set apart a permanent fund of forty 
thousand dollars, &c. 

There is no one who feels any interest in the Cemetery itself, 
or the noble charities it contemplates, who could not either spare the 
time or the money to do this. Should he not be disposed to keep 
them all, he can readily part with one, two or three, as he thinks best. 
This he can do almost without labour, and with but little effort. In 
the course of conversation or his walks he can say to his friend or 
neighbour, "I have taken four lots in the Cemetery, will you take one 
beside me." By this means, persons almost unconsciously become 
agents for the disposition of two or three lots each. It lightens 
labor, insures success, and secures to such as take an active interest 
in it, the satisfaction of having done thus much towards promoting some 
of the most desirable objects that can interest the hearts, or engage the 
attention of any community, in relation both to present and future 
good. 

Viewing it only as a Cemetery, it is a treasure to Baltimore, on 
account of the moral and religious influence it will necessarily exert 
over the rising generation. But when you connect with this the four* 

*Tlie proprietors propose, after the payment of the purchase money of sixty- 
five thousand dollars, with mterest, and the expenses that will be mciirred ui 
laying out, enclosing, and improvhig the grounds, out of the proceeds of sales 
of lots, to transfer their entire interest m the cemetery to the lot-holders, who 
will thereafter be the corporators under the charter ; with tliis reservation 
only, that after the accunudators, out of the receipts of the corporators, from 
sales of lots or otherwise thereafter, of the sum of forty thousand dollars, to 
constitute a permanent fund for niamtainhig the cemetery, the further receipts 
shall be annually divided and set apart as ft)lhnvs, viz : two-fifths to the 
exclusive use of the cemetery ; one-fifth to promoting the cause of temperance ; 
one-fifth to promoting the cause of Sunday schools ; and one-fifth to the estab- 
lishment and support of a seaman's home, and an apprentices library. 



noblest charities of the age, viz : the Temperance cause, the Sabbath 
School cause, the Seaman's Home, and the Apprentices' Library, you 
find here high motives to prompt you to action, contrasted with which, 
the mere consideration of gain, will bear no kind of comparison ; and 
in pursuing which you have a two-fold remuneration — you not only do 
good without any prospect of loss, but with a certainty of gain : you get 
value received, in the consciousness of having done your duty, and you 
get value received in a burial lot, twenty feet by sixteen, or three 
hundred and twenty square feet : the sale of every one of which dimi- 
nishes the number and enhances the value of the remainder, added to 
which, the expenditure for gate-ways, walls, &c. must all tend to increase 
its value. 

About one>third the number which the directors are desirous of sell- 
ing, has already been disposed of, and if for the remaining two-thirds 
we can get one hundred and fifty persons willing to take four lots each, 
two hundred to take two lots each, and three hundred to take one lot 
each, our work is done. 

If any congregation should be desirous of taking a number of lots, a 
part or the whole of the amount may constitute a portion of the permanent 
fund; and they may suit their convenience as to the time of payment, 
by paying up the interest semi-annually. The terms are one-fourth, 
cash ; one-half, first of November ; and one-fourth, first of February, 
1840. 

A Subscription List is at the Exchange, and at the office, No. 150 
Market street. 

CHRISTIAN KEENER, President. 



"Bury me not , I pray thee," said the patriarch Jacob, "bury me not 
in Egypt, but I will lie with my fathers. And thou shalt carry me 
out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying place." — "There they bu- 
ried Abraham and Sarah his wife; — there they buried Isaac and Rebecca 
his wife ; and there I buried Leah." Such are the natural expressions of 
•human feeling, as they fall from the lips of the dying. Such are the 
reminiscences, that forever crowd on the confines of the passes to the 
grave. We seek again to have our home there with our friends, and to 
be blest by a communion with them. 



•'We dwell with pious fondness on the characters and virtues of the 
departed ; and, as time interposes its growing distance between us and 
them, we gather up, with more solicitude, the broken fragments of 
memory, and weave, as it were, into our very hearts, the threads of their 
history. As we sit down by their graves, we seem to hear the tones of 
their affection whispering in our ears:— We listen to the voice of their 
wisdom, speaking in the depth of our souls:— We shed our tears; but 
they are no longer the burning tears of agony; they relieve our drooping 
spirits, and come no longer over us with a deathly faintness.— We return 
to the world, and we feel ourselves purer, and better, and wiser, from 
this communion with the dead. 

"Our cemeteries, rightly selected, and properly arranged, may be made 
subservient to some of the highest purposes of religion and human duty. 
They may preach lessons, to which none may refuse to listen, and which 
all that live must hear. Truths may be there felt and taught in the 
silence of our own meditations, more persuasive, and more endearing, 
than ever flowed from human lips. The grave hath a voice of eloquence, 
may of superhuman eloquence, which speaks at once to the thoughtless-, 
ness of the rash, and the devotion of the good; which addresses, at all 
times, and all ages, and all sexes ; which tells of wisdom to the wise, 
and of comfort to the afflicted; which warns us of our follies and our 
dangers; which whispers to us in accents of peace, and alarms- us in 
tones of terror; which steals with a healing balm into the stricken heart, 
and lifts up and supports the broken spirit; which awakens a new en- 
thusiam for virtue, and diciplines us for its severer trials and duties : 
which calls up the images of the illustrious dead, with an animating 
presence for our example and glory; and which demands of us, as men, 
as patriots, as Christians, as mortals, that the powers given by God should 
be devoted to his service, and the minds created by his love, should re- 
turn to him with larger capacities for virtuous enjoyment, and with more 
spiritual and intellectual brightness."— (See Judge Story's Address at 
the consecration of Mount Auburn.) 

Nor to the dead alone, but to the living kind, 
A monument, to your benevolence, you rear, 
More durable than marble, brass, or steel; 
A monument ! on living tablets writ. 
A monument! to praise you, when you're gone. 
The poor INEBRIATE'S worse than widow'd wife, 
And more than orphan children, by your bounty, 
Pluck'd from fiery ruin, and their hearts made glad, 
And peace, and plenty, and domestic bliss, 



Long banish'd, now restor'd, abiding inmates '^"' 

Of that quiet home, so late the scene of tumult, 
Strife, and want, where wretchedness and woe, in 
Undistuib'd possession, reign'd supreme. 

And many a WandPring Youth.) whose hardy lot, 
Was, under dubious circumstances cast, 
His way hedged up by walls of ignorance. 
And vice 3 without example of parental kind. 
To lure him on, ui vutue's pathway, and to whom 
The streams of knowledge were, as fountams, seal'd ; 
By your kind interference, timely check'd. 
Will live to bless the hand that mterposed, 
And rescu'd liim from ignorance, vice, and crime ; 
And brought the wand'rer back, and bade him live, 
To piu-poses of usefulness below, and spread, 
Tlirough the meanderings of liis joimiey here, 
The odour of a well eani'd virtuous fame. 

An(l lips, of many Little WandPrers^ gather'd in, 
tVom hedge and higlra ay, to the fold of Clirist ; 
And brought, tluough Sabbath School Instruction, Hun to know, 
Whose "ways are pleasantness, whose paths are peace," 
Shall bless you — while you sojourn here below. 
And when yoirr clayey tenement shall fail. 
And crumblmg, mhigle with its mother earth. 
Sleeps, undisturb'd, beneath some marble slab. 
Or cold grey stone, or shade of spreading elm. 
Which your own hands, perchance have help'd to rear. 
VV^hen friendship's off'rmgs cease, with flow'ry chaplets, 
To adorn your tomb — and none of kindred ties. 
Remains to tell, the stoiy of your doings, 
Or your birth, — when these and you, have pass'd awayj 
Even then, in after days, shall other little 
Wanderers, yet unborn, "aidse and call you blessed." 

Here too, the TVcather-beaten Sailor, soimduig finds, 
Where he can safely, let sheet anchor go; and moor 
His long, long shatter'd bai-quej — mto "snug harbqr," 
Right in sight of home. Tliere, peacefully to ebb out 
Life's last flow — and not a ripple break the parting wave. 



^, ,,r\ WOODS & CRANE, PRS. 

Lb H 10 



